Champ III: Going Places

The adventure starts here.

Peterborough Marina, Peterborough Ontario to Young’s Point Lock– July 2, 2013

Canada Day in Peterborough was quite something.  They started by setting up small booths in the park and billed it as a multicultural event.  ½ of the booths were food from various nations, Thai, Russia, Poland, Jamaica, Caribbean, India, Canada, and
Mexico.  There were several from a couple of the nations.  You got a chance to try
a small portion of a lot of different foods and the food was good.  Lenore was not keen on the spices.

They had a Canada Day parade on the main street out in front of the park.  Lots of floats, marching bands and rock bands on moving trailers.

They had a concert in the park at the band shell from about 8:00 to 10:00 as a warm-up to the fireworks display that was about ½ hour long.  Unfortunately it started to rain
right near the end of the fireworks, not hard, but enough to send some of the
crowd home.

Most of the day there probably was several thousand people in the park taking in the festivities. It really was something to see.  Most of them wearing Canadian flags.

We also attended a Looper’s Docktails on the dock last night.  The Harbor Hosts for AGLCA in Peterborough put on the Docktails which included munchies and a barbeque.  There were only 2 Loopers in the Marina.  Under normal circumstance there might be as many as 10.  The Erie Canal has been closed due to flooding and damage for the last 2 to 3 weeks and they are predicting another 2 weeks right now.  Don and Freya were great hosts.  They used to own a resort on the lakes along the Trent/Severn so they are really good.  Lots of good talk and stories swapped.

This morning was cool and cloudy with the forecast for possible rain, 30%, throughout the day. We left Peterborough at 8:40 to give us time to get to the first lock and be there when they opened at 9:00. The 2nd lock was the Peterborough hydraulic lift lock.  The two basins are identical in size and they are filled with the same amount of water.
The boats displace their weight in water so the 2 basins weigh the same.  They add an extra 1 foot of water to the upper basin and it is enough to lower it and raise the other basin.  There is no turbulence and it was quick and quiet.

There was no boat traffic today.  We traveled alone north and we passed 3 boats going south.  Everyone must have been hung over from Canada Day.

We did a total of 7 locks today and decided to take a break at the Young’s Point Lock.  It is just before Clear Lake so we went to the upper side of the lock to tie up.  That will allow us to get an earlier start tomorrow because we have 8 miles before the next lock.  Nice cottage area with a canal side gift shop with an ice cream counter.   About a block down the road was the local General Store but I did not go in as we really were not in a pinch for anything.

Tomorrow we will travel until we find a nice place to stop.  There are several possible
stops.  We will see how well we do with the locks.